Woody, Meet Groucho

In “What’s the Buzz on Woody?” (May 21), Patrick Goldstein tells us that Woody Allen “was part of a generation of ambitious ‘60s rebels who created a new pop persona--the hip Jewish outlaw who dazzled audiences with razor-sharp wordplay.” Created? I wonder how Goldstein would describe the persona of Groucho Marx. Each of the names Goldstein reels off owes a tremendous debt to Groucho, Allen most of all; he even mentions the Marx Brothers at the article’s end.

Ironically, the omission of Groucho follows a paragraph in which Goldstein makes fun of an Allen fan for not knowing who Van Johnson is. A working knowledge of film and cultural history seems to be extinct in current film criticism. Twenty years ago when “Stardust Memories” came out, critics recognized a Fellini remake when they saw one. Nowadays, Allen can remake “La Strada”--poorly--as “Sweet and Lowdown” without any reviewer I read mentioning, or noticing, it.

Allen claims he got the idea for “Small Time Crooks” from an article. I’ve seen that article too: It’s Mario Monicelli’s 1958 film “Big Deal on Madonna Street.” I guess I just miss the good old days when his pastiches of Fellini, Bergman and Groucho Marx were well made.

DAVID AVALLONE

Hollywood

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I’m a longtime Woody Allen fan, but when Goldstein said Allen got the idea for “Small Time Crooks” “after reading an article about a gang of thieves who’d tunneled into a jewelry shop from a store they’d rented next door,” I was floored. And Allen thought to himself, “What if the robbery didn’t work, but they made a killing from the fake store they’d set up next door?” Who’s he fooling?

There’s a 1942 movie starring Edward G. Robinson and Jane Wyman called “Larceny, Inc.” with which I’m sure Allen is quite familiar. It’s about three ex-cons who buy a luggage shop next door to a bank to tunnel into its vault, but the luggage shop does gangbuster business despite their efforts to make the shop fail.

Does Allen want us to believe that he came up with this idea from his head? He’s a brilliant writer, but this time he had help.

LESLEY BRACKER

Santa Monica

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Woody Allen is my favorite moral philosopher: a St. Thomas Aquinas in baggy cords, if you will. Despite all the frivolous gossip (“gossip is the new pornography”--ref: “Manhattan”) that reporters and others fling at one of our country’s most valuable filmmakers, his message that mankind is in an unwinnable wrestling match with mortality is one of our most basic moral conundrums.

His last three films--”Celebrity,” “Sweet and Lowdown” and “Small Time Crooks”--may be the best essays in current memory on how morally suffocating it is to be enveloped by publicity, fortune and the longing for “the good life.”

Those of us who smile a deep smile of anticipation as the white letters--”Written and Directed by Woody Allen”--spring onto the black screen are there for the sheer delight of a new discovery about life, love, pratfalls, music, rhythm, timing, expression, tenderness, one-liners and, oh, yes, moral philosophy.

REGINA MORIN

San Diego

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When Goldstein writes of Woody Allen, “It’s hard to imagine an American filmmaker less willing to swap independence for a box-office payoff,” one has to assume he doesn’t have much of an imagination.

Ever heard of a guy named John Sayles?

JAMES McILVAIN

Fillmore